Getting Paid

We were all hot and tired and dirty anyway from pulling sea boats into the wharfs down at the dock and tying them up taut to the pilings.

The wind was picking up all day, landward, and the forecast looked to be rough. So that just made a lot of extra work for all of us because the bosses don’t want the boats to break on the pilings down there.

And we tied them up tight. Even if the boats slap too hard and don’t break it could cause cracks you might not see. And then those cracks might break later, maybe even while you were out.

And then broken boats meant less work for us, and less work meant Old Man Morgan would let some of us go. So it all made sense that way.

So we were extra hot and extra tired. Our muscles were knotted on our arms and chests with little streams of dirt and sweat running down. Our dungarees were wet from the waist down. So all of that was the reason for the general mood, I guess.

We’d been waiting more than two hours for our pay while Old Man Morgan sold the day’s catch at his pier-side table. We were paid by the hour, but not for the time we waited.

We listened to feet shuffling past outside as the women and old men came to buy their supper, and we could tell when the crowd was dwindling. We were hoping the old man wouldn’t come up with something else for us to do before he let us go.

Most of us, me included, were squatting down on our haunches in the crew shack, our backs along the walls. A few of the guy were standing, mostly in corners, mostly talking or laughing quietly as they shifted their weight from one foot to another.

I was in my favorite spot, directly across the room from the door. I was watching the latch, waiting for it to flip up and the door to open. The board creaked behind me as I leaned back against it. If I leaned back just hard enough, a little breeze passed through and cooled the back of my neck.

That was how we waited.

Soon the old man would come in like he did every day.

He’d huff and park his fat butt in the only chair in the room at the only table in the room. None of us would take that chair.

Then he’d heft his little cash box up on the table like it weighed a million pounds and he’d huff again, like paying us was the only part of the day he regretted.

2

But us being hot and tired didn’t have anything to do with the incident itself. Other than just our general mood. But I know specifically what caused the incident itself. Harlan Jameson popped off about Mary Jo McWherter not being a virgin anymore. That’s what did it.

Well, it was either that or the smirk that stretched across his face as he said it.

I guess it got to the other guys. A couple of them gave him sideways glances and a few others shook their heads like they couldn’t quite believe he was that crass.

But it got into me deep for some reason. It got me right up off my haunches.

My dungarees chafed quick on the front of my thighs and everything after that was a blur. It was only a second before I was on him.

I caught him pretty good, I guess.

I saw my right thumb curled against my index finger and a profile of my knuckles with the side of his head just the other side of it and there was a jarring that ran up to my elbow. Then we went down and I flipped off the other side of him.

There was a roaring of voices in the background and he landed on me.

Someone grunted and we rolled around for a little bit. There wasn’t room to swing at all but my fingers on one hand closed around the edge of his shirt and the other grabbed flesh. I felt the sharp edge of a broken button against the inside of my index finger.

Then all I saw was wall, floor, boots and muddy dock shoes, ceiling, wall, and a corner with a little outside light shining through. The air tasted like salt, but I don’t know if that was sweat or sea air coming through that crack.

Then something flashed, and somehow I knew it was metal. Somehow I knew it was a knife, maybe because I’d heard he carried a big Buck knife folded in his pocket.

I hadn’t thought anything about that before, but I don’t know that it would’ve made any difference whatsoever, I was that mad.

Anyway, when I saw the same wall a second time it was a lot closer and then the corner was right there and we stopped suddenly. I shook all over. I think maybe his back hit the wall and the wall stopped us.

Anyway, I was on top.

Then some part of him came loose and he moved quick under me and something twitched. Something maybe in his shoulder and arm on the left side next to the wall. And I saw that flash in the overhead light and tried to pull back, but when you want to pull back you can’t pull back fast enough.

I was slow. I had to let go partly to put one hand on the floor on this side of him and another hand on the bottom of the wall on the other side of him to push myself back and away. Only that freed up some parts of him that I was holding onto before, though I guess I still had his legs trapped solid with my knees.

I got myself pushed up and back and that was a good time for a pause. Only I guess Jameson didn’t see it that way.

I mean, if I was in his position and the other guy was turning me loose and pushing himself up I’d have let him get up so I could get up.

But as I was pushing myself up I guess I relaxed my hold on his legs a little too. I had to raise up on my knees. Or maybe I relaxed my hold a little when that pain hit my left thigh. It was like a punch with a point and it shot clear up near my ribs.

I threw myself back in the fight-or-flight and there was a tug over there on my thigh, but then the tug let go.

Then I looked up, sitting back on my butt and saw Jameson was getting himself to his feet.

Then I chanced a looked over and down and saw the handle of that folding knife sticking up out of my leg. And my first thought was at least he didn’t ruin my trousers because the blade wasn’t all that wide. But it was a deep ache like a growing pain mixed with a little bit of nausea. That told me the blade was clear down in the bone.

And that told me he was serious. And it told me just in time.

3

Well then Jameson came at me, reaching down with both arms.

The other guys were all still yelling, only I couldn’t tell what they were yelling.

But Jameson, I was pretty sure he was going to try to grab that knife. Maybe to finish the job or maybe just to get it back, but I knew it’d hurt something fierce if I let him get it.

So I shoved my hands down on the floor and pushed myself backward and yelled, “No!” And that should’ve been the end of it.

Only Jameson didn’t think so, I guess.

He kept coming and he leaned down over me with a bunch of faces blurred behind him. I saw his face, then his shoulders, then his hands, open. They were as grimy as mine. He was reaching hard for me.

I think I remember I licked my lips. I know I tasted salt and dirt. Down on the dock it covers you so you almost can’t breathe, so you have to dig the crust out of your nose. Even in the crew shack afterward it’s like that, though most of us run a hand over our face, but that adds as much grime as it takes away.

Anyway, I kicked away again while Jameson was reaching. I might’ve timed it so I’d get him off balance but I can’t say for sure that I did.

I bumped solid against a pair of knees with my shoulder blades and my shirt moved up on my neck when the knees backed away.

Jameson was still coming. He was part of the blur by then but he was a closer part of the blur.

I twisted and reached left for the floor and the blur flashed past me on the other side.

Then there was a solid thump and some cursing, and that might’ve been Jameson or whoever he crashed into if he crashed into someone. I don’t know.

It might’ve been me too because I caught the point of my right shoulder hard on a table leg.

I hit it pretty solid and all the table legs groaned at once against the plank floor as the table skittered sideways against the grain. The edge of the table must’ve hit the inside back of that ladder-back chair too, because the chair fell over backward with a thwack just as the door opened.

Most of the yelling stopped then so the only big sound was the wind going by. It sounded angry, but it almost always does.

Usually a door opening lets in more light, but there was just a flash of light just for a second, like the wind blew it in there to shove it out of the way. Then there was only a solid shadow.

I was already twisted hard left at the waist so all I saw was the leg of that table and the planks of the floor past it and then the shadow, but I figured Old Man Morgan came in. He’s big enough to close off the light from the open door.

I figured I was in trouble and he’d yell, “Damn it, Nick!” or something like that. Then he’d pick up his chair and slap it back in place at the table. He’d do that with his left hand because his cash box would be in his right hand. And the sound of the chair hitting the floor would be like a gavel slapping the bench in court and everything would be over.

But the shadow just stayed where it was and it didn’t grab the chair and it didn’t say anything at all.

Then I remembered Jameson was behind me somewhere.

I chafed my sore shoulder against the table leg again and pushed against the floor with both hands while I tried to move left and forward around that table leg.

Somebody behind me yelled “Oh!” but kind of quiet and something jerked hard on the side of my right leg. Not like it was grabbed but like it was being pulled on the end of a wire.

4

White-hot electricity fired through my leg again, almost up to my shoulder, as something behind me roared with anger. Jameson.

I rolled hard to my left across the floor and ended up on my back again. But at least I could see him.

Jameson was up and leaning toward me. The others in the room were still part of the wall behind him.

I scrambled to my feet, my arms spread with caution in front of me. Part of that was to show him I had no weapon.

His lips were pulled back into a sneer, his eyes strained and focused and filled with crazy. His forehead was wet in horizontal lines, and little rivers of sweat ran down his cheeks and neck. His light khaki shirt was open and the third button down was only half there.

His red-streaked Buck knife was in his left hand. He held it with the edge down, his thumb on top like he knew what he was doing. In mute testimony, one big drop of blood hung in a blob at the tip, then stretched, then dropped.

Whatever caused the shadow on the floor was in my left periphery. Probably Old Man Morgan but I didn’t risk looking.

I put up my left hand and a shaking voice from somewhere said, “Harlan, if you don’t stop it I’m gonna hurt you.” That had to be me but I couldn’t swear to it.

I called him Harlan out loud on the dock and when I saw him around. But I always thought of him as Jameson, with that distance of a last name. I don’t like him. I never liked him, and you always think of someone you don’t like with distance.

Anyway, me calling him Harlan this time didn’t make a difference.

You ever seen eyes grin? Like they just made up their mind about something and decided it was time to put that something behind them?

Jameson’s eyes grinned. They almost glowed.

He ran his right hand up through the hair above his ear and his shoulders tensed. He was coming.

I kept my left hand up for another beat and planned what I had to do.

My right thigh muscle didn’t much like the plan. It stabbed a memory of pain up through my leg again. The muscles cramped in my right jaw as I clenched my teeth.

Jameson noticed that, me clenching my teeth. He focused on it and misread it and his eyes went from a grin to a sneer. He charged.

My left hand finally dropped as I crouched, then stood, and Jameson was on me.

But when I came up I had my own knife in my right hand, pulled from the strap at the base of my right leg.

My jaw clenched hard again as I braced myself.

Jameson’s right bicep hit my left shoulder and he stopped, cold, as I drove the blade home. He might’ve been a wave breaking on a rock.

His left hand shot forward and the blade of his knife grazed a rib on my right side, then dropped and clattered away across the floor.

He bent forward, sagged heavily over my right fist and arm, his head on my right shoulder. His breath was hot on the right side of my neck. A deep, quiet sigh huffed out against my ear.

A voice boomed, “Enough!” It was like canon fire on a too-distant coast. Close enough to hear but too late and too far off to make a difference.

My hand hidden from the blur along the wall by Jameson’s body and from Old Man Morgan by mine, I withdrew the knife. I tried to pull it out cleanly so as not to cause anymore damage or anymore pain. I tried to not think about Mary Jo McWherter.

My left arm around Jameson, I slipped the knife into my hip pocket and stepped back a half-step. I grabbed the ragged edge of his shirt with my right hand and his right arm with my left hand and helped him roll to the floor.

Then I just looked down at him, my chest heaving with the labor of exertion.

The blur along the far wall fell into a collective silence.

I twisted my head left to await pronouncement.

Old Man Morgan glanced at the figure of Jameson for only a second, as if there was nothing there at all. Then he looked at the blur along the wall and clapped his cash box on the table. “Well, you want paid or not?”

I queued up at the end of the line.

* * * * * * *

Author Note: In a different form, this short story also served as the opening for the novella Jobs Like That. See all of my fiction at my online discount store.